Reaping the Whirlwind
Anti-American protests have continued to spread across the globe, though the fires of passion are predictably burning out. People do have jobs to go to, children to feed, lives to lead. Even violence-prone jihadists can't always be breaching embassies or murdering diplomats.
Note: This is a slightly improved version of my latest Daily Mail column. Apart from a minor clarification or two, the column was left untouched, but about the time it was being put up, I was making a few additions.
The official American line on all this is to blame the makers of a childish film called The Innocence of Muslims. Anyone who has seen this little masterpiece can understand why Muslims might get angry with the US government for tolerating such a travesty of film-making, but it is impossible, seriously, to believe that these violent protests around the world are a spontaneous response to a movie that few have seen.
Such naïveté would seem to be predicated on a contempt for Muslims that in any other context would be condemned as racism, but that is the position taken by Secretary of State Clinton. Every time she comments on the protests, Clinton lays all the blame on the movie. Calling the video "disgusting and reprehensible," Mme. Clinton went on to observe: "It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage."
If I were a Muslim, Clinton's remarks would provoke far more rage in me than the film. Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif described the notion as "preposterous," and he and other Libyan officials insist that the attack was a planned assault by foreigners, possibly connected to Al Qaeda.
Naturally, our Libyan ally, whom the US and its allies put into power, would wish to minimize the involvement of Libyans in the murder of the US ambassador. Nonetheless, his opinion is confirmed by reporters who have interviewed protestors. Many of them have not seen or even heard of the movie, and they say they are motivated primarily by hatred of the US and Israel.
What else did President Obama and his Secretary of State expect? When Arab Spring erupted, wiser heads than the administration apparently has in its employ predicted the outcome: the overthrow of pragmatic dictators who had learned to be grateful the US--or at least to fear it--and a triumph for Islamist forces. If we can believe Hilary Clinton, she expected an upsurge of democracy and women's rights. What she faces now is a dramatic rise in Islamic anti-Americanism. Of course, Clinton cannot admit the truth, because it would be an admission that her own foreign policy has been a disaster for US security.
When will the Clintons and Albrights, the Condaleeza Rices and Dick Cheneys grow up and realize they live in a dangerous world they cannot control? When will they quit sending people like Ambassador Chris Stevens to meddle in revolution, as he did? When Stevens arrived in Libya in April 2011, the Washington Post headline was explicit: US envoy Chris Stevens arrives in Libya to help opposition fighters. The story quotes a State Department spokesman who said that Stevens' mission was to "explore ways to open the funding spigots for an opposition movement that is desperately short of cash and supplies.
Senator John McCain was equally enthusiastic when he visited Libyaduring the revolution: "I have met with these brave fighters, and they are not Al-Qaeda. To the contrary: They are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation." Apparently neither Senator McCain nor the man who defeated him in the presidential race failed to understand theh character of some of the Libyan rebels. To this day, the provisional government has not taken steps to punish the man who filmed himself sexually assaulting the unarmed Libyan dictator before murdering him. (I am still waiting for an official American condemnation of this savagery.)
The Obama administration, following McCain's lead, is trying to deny or minimize foreign elements in the Benghazi attack that cost Chris Stevens his life. Benghazi has symbolic importance: it is the place where the Libyan Revolution began. But as early as last November, the Al Quaeda flag was raised, along with the flag of the Libyan rebels, over a Benghazi courthouse.
There are insane Muslims, as there are insane Christians and insane Jews, but the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who have temporarily abandoned their daily lives to show their hatred of the United States are neither insane nor disgruntled film critics. They may not all watch CNN or read a newspaper, but they know that the US government has been regularly killing Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It's different when we do it, of course, because we believe in democracy, human rights, and the liberation of women, but in the eyes of these poor benighted Muslims, a dead child is a dead child.
This is not to make light of Islamic traditions that justify violence and terrorism. Much of what The Innocence of Muslims depicted, in its clownish and degrading way, has history on its side. The Christian (and now post-Christian) West has been at war, on and off, with Islam for over a millennium, and so long as there are believing Muslims, the struggle will continue. That is why the Americans pin their hopes on the degrading effects of the consumerism that has destroyed our own civilization. They refuse to understand that Muslims like Mohammed Atta can spend the night eating junk food and watching pornography and then go out the next day and kill hundreds of people. They cannot understand the religious motivation of Muslim men and women, because they have no religion of their own.
Whatever we decide to do about the Kulturkampf in Europe and the United States, it is none of our business to disturb the peace of Islamic countries, by light-heartedly setting out to change regimes or by going to war over imaginary weapons of mass destruction. We never had any justification for attacking Iraq and no hope of ever effectively controlling Afghanistan. If a war is unwinnable--as our two current wars have been from the day we killed the first Iraqi and the first Afghan--it should not be started. Leave these poor people in peace.
Here in America, we are coming to the end of the presidential election season. The two parties differ on many points, some of them important, but both are committed to the same foreign policy which can best be described as Global Democratic Jihad. We refuse to control our own border, but we think we can, as President John Quincy Adams complained, go about the world looking for dragons to slay.
We have done our best to sow the wind, and now, whether we like it or not, we are reaping the whirlwind.
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"They cannot understand the religious motivation of Muslim men and women, because they have no religion of their own."
This is precisely the warning Pat Buchanan gave adecade ago before the first Gulf War. It is always dangerous for a people of no faith to enage in endless war with a people of some faith. It has also been the normal rule of politics, until the GOP discovered Karl Rove, that it is generally difficult to beat "any"body with "no"body. Maybe times really have changed and old tales no longer reflect the new reality, but I doubt it. .... How long, O Lord, how Long?
Does anyone benefit, or at least believe they do, from all the carnage that Rove, Bush(both), Clinton(both), etc. inflict on the world? How could they always get it exactly wrong every time they 'act' in foreign countries unless there's a puppeteer of sorts?
Just as extremely advanced technology may appear to be magic, the results of extreme ignorance and ineptitude appear to be caused by a conspiracy. It is a conspiracy of dunces.
What disturbs me is the (alleged) involvement of Coptic Christians in the video.
Not because the video is relevant to these protests, obviously.
But because I expected intelligence from the Coptic community. Yes, the Coptic people have suffered great atrocities from their neighbours, who blow up their churches, shoot them, extort them, and roll tanks over them. Their treatment is so horrifying that I should not be in the position to judge them.
All the same, if the claims of there being a Coptic director, Coptic producers, and Coptic distributors are true, then they have done a great disservice to their community. These were once an esteemed and proud people. Why should any member of their community be involved in childish tactics like that terrible movie? I am not even talking about its controversial or "blasphemous" nature. It's just a very bad movie, and to use it to score a political point against the Islamic world - it's pathetic.
I feel bad about it in the same way I felt bad seeing *some* Americans - also an esteemed and proud people - celebrate bin Laden's death in a childish manner. It's a fall from grace.
Prateek,
Yes, it is too bad but people sin all the time until the end of time, and afterall the poor guy had been living in California for quite lsome time, even hanging around Hollywood etc. Some folks are capable of heroic virtue but most are not, which is why culture contributes to civility and the libertarian idea of every man for himself is absurd. Especially when sentiment is mistaken for reason ----- such as the popular phrase, "just do it!"
I think it is possible to distinguish between the disgraceful exaltation of most Americans over the death of Bin Laden from the activities of a handful of Copts, some of whom may have been driven by persecution to undertake a desperate and foolish action. Apparently, the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt has made things harder for Copts and has radicalized many younger Copts who reject the moderation of their traditional leaders.
So, the powers that be stupid blame the the violent riots on a silly, ridiculous video that's been up for months. Then, the maker of the video gets arrested and threatened with prison for doing what, according to the law, was exercising his constitutional right to free speech, since he wasn't inciting violence against any one or any group. All so the powers that be stupid can have a scapegoat for the backlash of their own stupid policies. It was even stupid to blame it all on that silly video. So naturally their choice of a scapegoat was itself a stupid choice.
Orwell couldn't have dreamed up a better plot for a novel, nor could the makers of 'Airplane' or 'Hot Shots' have dreamed up a sillier plot for a movie. This whole farce is 'Wag the Dog', combined with 'Idiocracy'.
What a stupid, Orwellian move on the part of the powers that be stupid.
May I gently correct my most esteemed friend and editor Dr. Fleming on John Quincy Adams. The quotation from Adams is often used as a marker that early Americans were not interested in interfering in foreign matters. This is one of the many Massachusetts distortion of history. In fact, Adams was the first to violate the wisdom of Washington and Jefferson against entangling alliances. He tried to get the U.S. involved in a Pan American Congress of Latin American states. Congress and public opinion shot him down. He also driveled on more than once about an American mission in the world.
If I knew what the correction was, I would gladly accept it from someone who has been and continues to be my mentor in American history. You describe Adams' statement as a "marker," but whatever the reality of his foreign policy, the phrase is used to indicate a certain point of view. In an editorial addressed to mostly British readers, such a statement, since it has passed into proverbial lore, can, I believe, be safely cited without endorsing Adams or his career. In those days, I believe, endorsements of peaceful non-intervention were often used as weapons against an enemy, hence the Anglophile Federalists disliked the alleged affection of the Jeffersonians for France, and vice versa. Adams was all for crusading, so long as it benefitted his own faction and their economic interests, hence his hypocritical stance on slavery. Nonetheless, I think one can, for example, cite Cicero's pompous declaration that the laws are silent amidst the clash of arms without noting that he was defending an aristocratic gang-leader who had committed a cold-blooded murder after wounding his victim in a street brawl or that the Ciceronian formula for self-defense had no basis in Roman law, which was very hard on dueling and street-fighting. Now, in a scholarly paper I should never cite Cicero as an authority on self-defense or JQ Adams on non-intervention. An editorial in a foreign paper does not require, I would argue, such rigor. We certainly agree completely on the odious JQA.
OK. It was just a gentle reminder that Adams does not deserve to be the proverbial authorityt on the subject.
Well, say what your like about those crazy Muslims and they ain't no angels. But, they know what to do with carpetbaggers, don't they?
I have no idea what Mr. Taqiyya's sarcasm is supposed to mean. Perhaps like most sarcasm it means nothing.
Tom,
It is designed to appeal to a certain humor that is cynical and condescending towards the ancient habit and ritual of getting to know strangers. You see if Moslems get enraged about a "hollywood stunt" film and start burning and killing American diplomats, that is just like some old old fogey not allowing the new neighbor next door to watch his home for the summmer, or failing to support a carpetbagger in the next election simply because you are one of those suspicious types who hate foreigners and strangers.
I am beginning to understand the rules of the game. Someone wrote into my column to insist, without evidence, that Islam was non-violent. When I posted the following response, it was taken down:
In looking at the West's relations with the Islamic world, there are two potentially fatal errors: The first, characteristic of American conservatives, is to minimize the impact of US foreign policy in stirring up animosity and violence. The second, typical of Islamophiles and Western self-haters, is the delusion that Islam is not per se a violent religious movement. The founder of the religion was a man of violence, his successors were equally violent, and Islamic expansion across the Middle East and into Europe was an extremely violent affair in which terrorism was a standard weapon to soften up populations who might eventually welcome a stable Islamic regime. Turkish control of the Balkans was a nightmare. One had thought it over a hundred years ago but like the demons in Poltergeist, they're back.
Dr. Fleming,
This is what Freedom is all about ---- if you want to act like an idiot, a neo- nazi skinhead, a Christian fool who hates homosexuals,with vulgar displays of freedom by disrupting private funerals etc. you will enjoy constitutional protections. Yet, if you disagree with Alan Dershowitz on Israel, or the Brits on peaceful Islamists, or you have some knowledge of Latin, Greek, the history of the world, your own beloved country, speak three of four foreign languages, and are an unapolgetic Christian, then you need to be shut down and shut up!
That's what we call, "FREEDOM" and why so many of our soldiers must fight and die for it in the wastelands of Islam and other places yet to be discovered. As Mark Twain once said, " American fight wars in order to learn geography."